


to face god, and walk backwards into hell

by valdera



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, kind of canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 21:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17251781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valdera/pseuds/valdera
Summary: Maybe Guzma can feel the Lusamine tangled through Gladion’s hair, alive and breathing poison into his eyes his skin, his blood his bone, until his body turns to something akin to a puppet, bent to her will. This is the shadow that stares to Gladion’s soul during storms, the one that holds him and holds him and moves him to violence.The one thing Gladion promises himself is to never look back. He has done horrible things and left so many people alone, but he cannot look back. Sadness is weakness and if there is one thing Gladion cannot allow himself to be, it is weak.He keeps running.





	to face god, and walk backwards into hell

**Author's Note:**

> yes the title is a dril tweet, yes it has actual meaning, yes, i'm a loser. 
> 
> hey dani! i was ur secret satan in our server-wide exchange! i hope u enjoy this way-longer-than-it-needed-to-be pokemon fic!

Gladion sees the fire warming the sky long before he hears his heart beat again. Paralyzed under the golden glow, his hands, shoved deep in his pockets, tremble.

Memories flood his mind to calls for his skin to come back, for his body to be reclaimed, but—

He finds the shadow and sinks himself as deep as he can within it. _Make me unclean_ , he prays, _so dirty that no one will want me._ The only way to hide from the whitest light is to find the exact opposite.

His wish is granted. Even the dark hates him.

Team Skull takes him in without any formalities, meaning that Gladion is free to do as he wishes, and that no one will remember him if he becomes a corpse. It is the place farthest away from Lusamine’s pristine, godlike haven. Dirty and ruthless, Gladion does not thrive in any gang or camaraderie, but he survives, day in and day out. It is the one thing he had ever learned from his mother. In a perfect world, he would never have to know, but for now, he thanks it for as long as the skill lives.

With a sigh, Gladion drags an unwilling Type: Null around the islands. He knows that Team Skull only keeps him around because he is powerful. This is the only reason Type: Null listens to him in battle: survival. They both have the instinct and the wits needed to fight for the right to life.

If he was not powerful, if he became useless, they would toss him to the side like dust off their shoulders, and proceed to thank Arceus for the freed weight. All Gladion can do is far so fly above them that they do not even dare drag him down.

Gladion claws with limb and life and sinks his teeth in as deep as he can. He’ll never be a part of Team Skull, and honestly, he’s not sure if ever wants to be, but the least he can do is be somewhere safe.

 _Safe_ , he thinks, as the nightmares of Lusamine’s hands and face and voice swarm him like a tower of cockroaches. In the night he does not sleep so much as eject his soul from his body and pray for fitful rest. Even now, as far as he runs, her light has managed to stretch far enough to touch his skin and draw blood.

He does not live with the other members of Team Skull. He is too terrified of his weakness being found out. Gladion finds the first hotel that will ask no questions and then rents it out for as long as he can. The bed goes unused most nights, but the staff never ask questions. Nor do they ask about the scorch marks on the floor, the tear stains on the pillow sheets, or the scratches left on the walls.

Pokémon, they must assume. A little too mischievous for their own good.

But save for Type: Null, Gladion’s Pokémon are well behaved. It is Gladion himself that is not. His Zubat flits around the room with a little too much energy, but Gladion always keeps it safe within his reach. _The damage_ , he sums up one day in his thoughts as he stares into the mirror, _is all inside me._

He doesn’t ask himself these questions, either. Doesn’t bother to really think about why he is the way he is. Faced with the daily grind of life, nightmares become normal and everything fades into a dull gray. Nothing and no one, Gladion thinks, almost willing himself to become invisible. A place where the light cannot touch.

He wakes up to a lightning strike and hands around his neck. He has failed again.

 

* * *

 

It’s during a storm when Type: Null finds him for the first time, huddled under the bed sheets, praying for the trees not to catch fire. The room is cold and wet and Gladion has locked all of his feelings deep in iron, but under the sharp sounds of thunder and the flashes of lightning that pierce through the thin covers, he finds that his feelings strain the locks that hold them tightly shut.

It is only during nights like these that he misses his sister. He wonders how she is doing, all alone in a facility where nothing and no one wants her. Her hair is probably growing longer and longer by the day. So is Gladion’s. Caught in the cacophony of sound, he makes the decision to never cut it back to its original shape.

With a deep breath, he moves out of the bed and leans back on the wall, trying and failing to breathe. A sudden quake shakes the ground, and Poké Balls spill from his bag, laid precariously on the bed. As it falls, Gladion flinches, and doesn’t open his eyes for a very long, long time. When he feels like he can finally face the resulting empty silence, he comes face to face with Type: Null. Hesitant, Gladion reaches out with a shaky hand.

Type: Null accepts. With a low grumble, it paces over towards Gladion’s side, purposefully blocking the window outside. Gladion lets his fingers trail along the sharp lines of Type: Null’s body.

“Born to be a fighting machine,” he murmurs, and Type: Null stiffens under his touch.

“Just like me,” Gladion says. It looks up at him with piercing eyes.

Gladion swallows. “I promise not to control you,” he says. “I’m trying to keep you safe from my mother, but...”

He hangs his head and closes his eyes. “I’m weak. And…this is your choice to make, not mine. I’m sorry.”

Type: Null stays still.

“You’re not leaving?” Gladion asks, voice pitiably small. “Um. Thanks.”

Type: Null growls as the sound of thunder rocks overhead.

Gladion winces. “I don’t like thunder,” he says. “Or lightning. Or the rain. Or fire, really.”

It’s dumb, and weak, but insanely enough, Type: Null just shifts closer.

 _Allow yourself this_ , a voice in his head whispers. _Be weak. Be useless for a moment._

Gladion refuses to accept it. He needs power. This is but a momentary lapse in it. He wrenches the comfort kept in that whisper and keeps it separate from the rest of his mind.

 _One day_ , Gladion thinks, _I’ll think about it more. But for now, I just have to live._

He tries to wear the Team Skull uniform, the next day, and feels so disgusted that he makes himself another allowance. He supposes their dislike for them is reciprocated.

With Null by his side for real now, Gladion becomes ever-more vigilant. He’s well aware of the links connecting the Aether Foundation to all of Alola’s higher powers. The villagers cannot be trusted. Nor can the kahuna, of which Lusamine is all on good terms with. Maybe he can trust the professor, but that is certainly doubtful. They’ve never met, after all. Really, the only people he can trust are Pokémon trainers, who exist only during battle and are forgotten soon after. The only trainers anyone remembers, after all, are their rivals.

Gladion has no rival. He is taking no challenge. All he is doing is running. With this knowledge fresh in his head, he tracks through the island with a single-minded ferocity rivaled perhaps only by his very own mother.

 _Hey_ , no one asks, _are you doing okay?_ This is possibly the best part of Team Skull, Gladion realizes, on the days he wakes up screaming. They hate him, but they fear him, and for that all, Gladion is safe.

Guzma always stares him down with a glint in his eyes, as if he can sense Gladion’s defiance. But he says nothing, and does nothing about his presence. He just maintains a careful and poised noninterference, which Team Skull woefully misinterprets as favoritism.

Maybe Guzma can feel the Lusamine tangled through Gladion’s hair, alive and breathing poison into his eyes his skin, his blood his bone, until his body turns to something akin to a puppet, bent to her will. This is the shadow that stares to Gladion’s soul during storms, the one that holds him and holds him and moves him to violence.

The one thing Gladion promises himself is to never look back. He has done horrible things and left so many people alone, but he cannot look back. Sadness is weakness and if there is one thing Gladion cannot allow himself to be, it is weak.

He keeps running.

 

* * *

 

Gladion is six years old when he meets his mother for the first time. This is not to say he does not remember her in his childhood. He certainly remembers her being around, smiling and laughing and being the image of a perfect mother, a perfect wife. Then her husband died or went missing, or whatever, and Gladion doesn’t remember her being too sad about that, so he hadn’t been, either. He’d been more engrossed with Lillie talking, in her quiet and soft voice, and more interested in the concept of having a little sister than the concept of having a dead father.

It is only when his mother drops a textbook on his bare hands that he thinks that perhaps the situation is different.

“Why aren’t you studying?” she asks testily, eyes gone cold and steel. She is not yelling. Gladion knows this, because his mother has boasted time and time again of the fact that she does not yell.

Instead, she has just raised her voice. The sound pierces Gladion’s skin. She cradles his cheek with her hand, hand ice cold, nails horror-sharp.

“Answer,” she commands.

Instinctively, he knows that she does not care what the answer is. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“This is what bad children do,” Lusamine says. “Don’t you know you have talent, Gladion? And yet you… disappoint me. Why do you not spend your every waking moment studying Pokémon?”

Quietly, regretting every second, Gladion says, “Dad said—said it’s best to enjoy the small things.”

She laughs. “Your father is gone,” Lusamine says. “I will make everything perfect on my own.” She turns to him, hand bearing down on top of his. Her nails skim against the back of his hands and dig in.

She does not draw blood. She is far too perfect for that. “Listen,” she hisses. “Gladion, you must be perfect. I will not settle for anything less. If you are not perfect, you are useless.”

Something happens in the space between them. Gladion finds that Lusamine’s face has slipped off the reveal a gaping maw, white light filling it with warning bells. He winces and his eyes begin to water.

Lusamine laughs. “Don’t you think your little crying tricks will work on me,” she says. “You can’t manipulate me like this. Just listen-” and here she digs deep- “and it will all be fine for you, okay?”

Her voice takes form and twists across his neck until it forms into something almost solid. She smiles and the noose around his neck tightens. “Come with me for lunch,” she says.

“Yes, mother,” Gladion says, shivering.

“Mother,” Lusamine muses, “a good choice. I like the sound of that. I am a good mother, aren’t I?”

Voice caught in his throat, Gladion just nods. Lusamine’s true form wraps around him in a complex stranglehold, a knot impossible to untangle.

He runs and hides everything he’s ever cared about in a small, locked chest, and shoves it as deep and far away as he can. Maybe he can never touch it again, but at the very least, his mother will not get to it.

The day Gladion meets his mother is the day he learns what insomnia feels like.

 

* * *

 

It is a sunny day when he first meets Hau, and truly, the fates must have aligned, because Hau is exactly like that—sunny. Then again, Alola is often sunny, and maybe it is much more that Hau feels like the spirit of Alola than the spirit of the sun. Either way, he is bright, almost blindingly so, and makes Gladion feel desperately out of place.

He goes down not easily, but enough, but when the dust clears and Hau has packed up his Poké Balls, he is still smiling. It irks Gladion in a way that he has never felt before.

No one in their life can feel happy about losing. Gladion has lost so many things in his life, and he lives in the pits of misery.

But there is no lie in Hau’s smile. It just—exists, in a good-natured, almost harmless way. It still feels harmful, though. It feels far too close to Gladion’s heart. And hearts, he knows, are dangerous. The only thing left uncompromised within his heart is Lillie. To this day he is still afraid to question if this is because Lusamine has ingrained how much blood ties mean into his brain, so far that it breaches through his every guard and barrier.

“Don’t you have any pride?” he asks, the question buzzing in his veins like an irresistible itch.

“I was having fun,” Hau says, “and enjoying it.”

“…Enjoying it?” Gladion’s answer is curt. “Have fun and _win_ , then. At the very least, put your heart into it.”

Hau just smiles.

Up on the bend, a new trainer enters the scene. She smiles with an effervescent, all-knowing smile, and Gladion almost likens her to Lusamine before she grins and launches herself into battle. She fights like a flurry of indecipherable techniques, and it’s a long fight, but Gladion finds himself at the losing end.

Standing over him, she radiates a pure joy that heart achingly reminds him of Lillie. Strangest of all, Moon does not even flinch when he mentions Team Skull.

The loss is bitter, but well won, Gladion decides. Yet, he still cannot get rid of that itch. He stares at Hau for a long, long time.

“How annoying,” he eventually concludes.

And once he is far away enough, he mutters, “It seems I’ve found a rival.” The sanctity of the forest keeps the spoken word crafted in its bark, for no one but Gladion to know. He stands up and lets Null shake itself off after being freshly healed. The two of them exchange the briefest looks.

And then they run.

 

* * *

 

“Oh,” Lusamine coos, “my daughter is so pretty, isn’t she?”

Lillie smiles bright and warm at the mirror.

“Let us go to lunch,” Lusamine says, ushering her over to the table with a strong grip on Lillie’s shoulders, thumbs sweeping over the back of her neck.

“You’re hurting me,” Lillie murmurs, so quietly.

“You need to have proper posture,” Lusamine responds. “I am doing this for your own good. Keep walking.”

So Lillie does. When Lusamine introduces the two of them, Gladion gives a firm handshake, like all men are meant to do, and Lillie curtsies in a motion that Gladion knows Lusamine has drilled into her.

Lusamine talks in bright, joyous statements, and her mouth spits out lies much like it does venom. “My son is interested in Pokémon battling,” he says. “He is very strong and talented.”

Gladion nods and keeps his mouth shut. He maintains a half-smile throughout the whole inane conversation, just enough to keep Lusamine pleased.

“You all seem very close,” someone comments.

“Yes, we are!” Lusamine says with a giggle. “It’s just like what I always say. Family comes first.”

Gladion nods and steals a glance over to Lillie, who’s been passed over by most. He reaches out and taps her wrist. She looks at him with wide eyes. Checking to make sure no one else is paying attention to them, Gladion hurriedly goes through the motions of a rock-paper-scissors game.

Lillie hides her laughter and obliges.

With his mother’s shadow hanging over his head, Gladion ducks his head, and survives.

 

* * *

 

It seems like Hau and Moon are persistent, and difficult to ever let go of. He meets the two of them again in the Battle Royale, and finds himself tasting defeat once again. The bitterness comes not wholly from it, though. A large part of it is the new taste of unfamiliarity ringing through his brain. He knows a change has occurred. But he doesn’t know how to stop it.  

When they exit, Gladion does exactly what he’d first planned to do: bury his sorrow. He sits in the crowded stadium and carefully crafts and epitaph in the lines of his hands. By the time the match has ended, Gladion holds a shimmering link of spider thread, spun into white lilies for the deceased.

The world finds him staring at his empty, hollow hands. But Gladion can see past the material, can create figments of truth within his imagination. When he looks, he finds himself staring at his empty, hollow soul, his body a husk of what it never was.

 

* * *

 

Gladion meets Hau’s Litten in the pouring rain.

They’d met and battled once before, but this is his first time seeing it up close. He knows it is Hau’s by the way it smiles up at him unassumingly. He finds that Hau’s traits are easy to memorize, in the wide open smile of his and the same, full-force style of battling.

“You can come in,” he says, and opens the door to his hotel room.

This visit will be temporary, after all. More importantly, Litten almost looks disturbed as it walks in, as if it’s angry about something. Gladion cannot possibly imagine Hau making his Pokémon mad.

The Litten blinks up at him with recognition in its eyes. It shakes the rain off of its fur, leaving a dripping puddle in its wake. Gladion crouches down with a soft, white towel.

Lusamine’s—his mother’s—ghost haunts him at his back.

The rain tends to bring unpleasant memories for him. It runs the grass and dirt together, and the flowers sag with the weight of it. Lusamine’s disapproving mouth curves further downwards with every streak of dirt she sees. She pulls at Lillie’s hair and fusses with her dress and stomps around the house muttering about uncleanliness. Back when Gladion was a witness of the carnage, he would slink in from the back with his shoes left out to soak in rainwater, and carefully slip into his room and lock the door, praying that Lusamine would not break through. He would then shake off his clothes and breathe in, and then wish to shake off his skin, too, as if each impurity could be scrubbed away.

Gladion breathes in and catches his reflection in a shiny piece of metal. He almost flinches away. It has taken a long time to get used to his reflection. It looks so different from the past, so much so that Lusamine’s teeth seem to sink in his ears and tell him _cut it cut it cut it improper improper wrong wrong bad bad useless—_

Null disturbs in its Poké ball. Gladion sighs and lets it out. It shakes its head, once, twice, and glares the Litten down.

The Litten stares back. It has that in common with Hau, too. It is fearless.

“Oh, just...” Gladion sighs, patting Null’s head. “Let it be, alright?”

Null grumbles under his hand.

The Litten paces around the room in small, careful steps, bright eyes narrowing as it passes over the Team Skull uniform shoved in the corner.

It paws at it with mild curiosity before wrinkling its nose and sidestepping it altogether.

Null looks at him unimpressed, as if to say, _look, dude, even it knows you don’t have any friends._

“Shut up,” Gladion mutters, face red. “I—I have you, don’t I?”

Null presses against his side in a weak show of comfort. Gladion accepts it for what it is and says nothing in protest. It doesn’t make him feel any better, but he appreciates it nonetheless.

Null and him are both manicured creations of Lusamine. In the darkest of nights he wonders if that’s why they are well-suited for each other. And then he does not dare disprove it, because in the end, both of them are on the run, and both of them know how to survive. The feelings come farther down the line of priority.

Almost immediately, there’s a series of sharp taps on his hotel door. Gladion heads the rough, hurried breathing, and strides over to the door.

His hand settles over the doorknob, hesitant. He waits.

“Um—uh—“ Hau’s voice is clearly distressed from the other side. “I think my Litten is here, I’m so sorry to bother you but, could—could you please check? If it’s caused any damage I’ll, um—“

Gladion swings the door open. “Your Litten is here,” he says. “Calm down, Hau.”

Hau looks up at him, and strangely enough, smiles. “Oh,” he says, sheepish and softly relieved all at once. “It’s you. Hey, Gladion, how have you been?”

“Worse.” Gladion says, glaring at Hau with as much force as he can. The boy does not stop smiling.

“Oh,” Hau says, impossibly brightening up even more at the sight of his Litten bounding up to him, “that sucks, man.”

The Litten jumps into his arms readily. Gladion leans against the wall. “What are you doing here?” he asks, unsure if he’s stepping over his boundaries. “Why did your Litten run off?”

“Oh, wow man, never seen you this talkative,” Hau says. “Well, to answer your questions, nothing really.”

Gladion glares at him. “Your Litten seems unsure and agitated,” he says. “You shouldn’t let it feel that way.”

For the first time since they’ve met, Hau frowns. It’s unlike him, and Gladion’s chest feels funny. “Um, dude, I know that,” he says. “I’m—this Pokémon thing isn’t working out as easy as I first thought it would be.”

“Of course,” Gladion says, thinking about how Null wouldn’t even touch him, the first month they were on the run together. “Pokémon are never easy. If they were, they wouldn’t be so powerful.”

“Ah—but it’s not all about power, is it?” Hau asks. “It’s about having fun.”

Gladion frowns. Hau still doesn’t get it. For some reason, that makes him sad. “For you,” he begins haltingly, “those two are going to go hand in hand. You’re—you’re doing the island challenge, right?”

“Oh,” Hau answers, biting his lip, “Gladion, you have a point.”

His name sounds friendly in Hau’s bright voice, though muted. It’s almost kind. Gladion’s chest feels tight.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gladion says. “Whatever.”

Hau smiles. “Thanks.”

Gladion looks away. “I wasn’t even doing anything,” he bites out.

“Sure you weren’t,” Hau says. “But—um, you know, I didn’t expect you to comfort me.”

Gladion bites back a growl. Comfort? He doesn’t comfort. He doesn’t care about anyone. He—

Hau continues on, oblivious. “Since, with my grandfather being the Kahuna and all, I always expected it to be kind of easy. I mean, you make it look easy, after all. But—“

Gladion stiffens. He’d almost forgotten who he was. Who Hau was. Who they were, when pitted against each other.

This is what he remembers. His mother with the matchstick and the killer gaze, the dry grass in front of her, and then fire spreading through the ground, nipping at Gladion’s legs, as he ducked out of the way and desperately tried to catch a water type Pokémon in order to stop the damage. Halfway through the mission, he’d seen the orange and red encircle him in a holy sort of tomb, and under the terror, his vision had blacked out. When the fog cleared from his head, the fire was gone, and Lusamine was clapping slowly, eyes alight with hunger.

“Do that again,” she had said.

Gladion had felt for his heart once, twice, and found nothing. He obeyed.

“Your grandfather is the kahuna,” he says. It’s not a question. All it does is cement the unshakeable truth in his mind.  

“Um, yeah,” Hau says. “Anyways—“

Panic rises in his chest. If Hau’s grandfather is the kahuna, Hau must know—

Why does Hau talk to him? Does Hau trust him?

The Team Skull uniform in the corner of his eyes burns in his vision. _The Aether Foundation is on good terms with the rest of villagers_ , Gladion reminds himself, sharp and harsh as the nails digging into his palm.

He is painted black in the nighttime and wrought with envy. Gladion sighs in the empty dark of his mind and steels his resolve. His heart is yet too soft in its lost location.

“Gladion?” Hau says, trailing off from his spiel, his voice far too concerned for the situation.

“Get out,” Gladion says, terrified of crying.

“Hey,” Hau says, worry evident in his face. It makes Gladion sick to his stomach.

“ _Get out_ ,” he hisses.

Hau stumbles out of his room and Gladion shuts the door in his face. He slumps against the wall and sighs.

 _I can’t get involved with people_ , he reminds himself. _I can’t._

There’s a knock on the door again.

“What,” Gladion says, voice maybe desperate and broken enough to be heard through the door. He hopes the wall is enough to block the nervous, panicked tremble of his emotions.

“I—“ Hau sighs. “Never mind. I just thought... maybe we would get along?”

Gladion almost laughs. “Never,” he says instead. “That’s... simply foolish.”

Hau leaves. Doesn’t even say good bye. The Litten taps at the door, almost as if to spit on his soul, and then he hears footsteps recede. _Fire types_ , Gladion thinks. _Always a little too much._

Hau is… maybe he is something like a rival, but Gladion will still do everything in his power to get away from him.

Gladion closes his eyes, and sees the bright imprint of Litten’s eyes in the dark. He clenches his fist. There is one more nightmare to add to the list.

 _One day_ , Gladion thinks, _all my secrets will be touched by the light again, and then I will burn up to dust._

Delaying the explosion of his feelings is meaningless, but Gladion persists anyways, along with the growing reoccurrences of his nightmares. The desire stuck in his throat makes him shake.

He keeps running from it.

 

* * *

 

Even so, Hau and Moon are persistent, and difficult to ever let go of.

This complication is brought in when Gladion learns that not only do Hau and Moon know Cosmog, they are protecting it. Why and how, Gladion does not question.

He just looks at Moon and tells her not to mess up.

She smiles.

Moon and Hau are always smiling. Once again, Gladion feels the difference between them,

He wonders, then, why he can’t help but be drawn towards them.

“Maybe you don’t trust me,” he settles on, “but make sure Cosmog is safe. In the wrong hands, it becomes dangerous.”

Moon keeps smiling. “I will,” she says.

“Don’t make promises,” Gladion calls out before walking away. “You can never keep them for life.”

Gladion leaves and promises not to see them again.

 

* * *

 

This, he doesn’t mean. Doesn’t expect it at all. He means to see them on his own terms, not run into like some awkward coincidental meeting. Neither does he mean to overhear them, but as soon as he does, his blood runs cold.

Gladion cannot even break promises on his own terms.

“I’m sorry?” he says, once he’s caught their attention and Hau has ever so nicely explained the situation. “Say that again. They took Lillie?”

Moon and Hau share a glance before nodding.

Gladion bites down all his pride and breathes. The fear swells up and he lets it spill over to the ground in waves, shaking the earth with its terror. What Gladion has told no one, not even himself, is that fear and strength are not too separate, in his mind. Lusamine had raised him to be strong; he just needs to be even stronger.

“And… you weren’t able to find her, or save her, or watch her…”

His blood boils. _These people did not protect my family_ , he thinks. _Did not even protect a small, defenseless Pokémon._ His vision turns white, and Null is out of his Poké Ball.

 _Fire_ , he thinks, _first,_ _fire to burn everything to ashes, then a broom to sweep them away, and a knife, to keep everyone else at bay._ Lusamine clings to him with all her parasitic tendencies.

The fog in his mind only clears once his Pokémon lay defeated before him. Gladion sits in the dust. He does not weep. He just thinks, _the dark is no longer safe. No one is safe. I have nothing._

He makes his choice.

“Meet me at the Ula Ula ferry,” he says, and then he gets up and runs.

 

* * *

 

The Aether foundation is hard to walk through. White walls, blank space—all a stark reminder of the person he used to be, including the trembling fears locked in his heart. Hau is unusually serious as he walks through the empty hallways. He keeps glancing at him as if he’s undergoing a multitude of revelations.

Gladion desperately hopes that Hau’s revelation is not that he is weak, and that he has always been so.

The emptiness now is almost better, though. With Moon glaring at the open hallways and a Poké Ball clutched tightly in her hand, Gladion almost feels safe. She holds her Poké Ball much in the way someone would hold a weapon, Gladion realizes. But she is desperately kind about it outside of battle.

The losses aches in his chest. He knows he is weaker than her, and he’s not sure he will ever really be able to be stronger.

“How are you holding up?” Hau whispers, finally, looking at him with a curious expression. Gladion does not understand how he bears the weight of his family lineage, and manages to smile like such. Then again, Gladion never understands much.

“Fine,” Gladion snaps, obviously not fine. Hau, like the fool he is, pries him open.

“You must have been alone for a pretty long time,” he says.

Gladion winces. He knows he’s friendless, but Hau doesn’t have to rub it in.

“I’m sorry,” Hau continues. “To be so alone in your own home... must be terrible.”

“I didn’t have it as bad as Lillie,” Gladion says, trying not to let his voice shake. “Mother always... restricted her more.”

He gestures to himself. “I mean, I’m... like this.”

Being so painfully aware of his own flaws is taxing. Gladion pointedly does not look at Hau. The crumbling of his self, at last, becomes measured and quiet and unsurprising. His feelings do not burst so much as they seep out of him like slow-acting poisons seep in.

Gladion breathes a quiet sigh. Even now, Lusamine’s claws rest on his back. He hears her voice in the empty hallways and follows.

“I mean, it still like, sucks,” Hau says vehemently, clearly incapable of understanding. “It really, really sucks.”

“And?” Gladion asks.

“And that’s it,” Hau says. “That’s awful, and I’m sorry it happened.”

 _Oh_ , Gladion thinks, _he’s never promised to understand_ , and that makes him feel ten times as lighter.

Hau continues on. “So it sucks!” he concludes. “It sucks that you had to go through that!”

Hesitantly, he takes the comfort for what it is—kindness. “Yeah,” he breathes, footsteps the only other sound between them, “it really, really does.”

The shadows grow around his shoulders and press down on his heart with the weight of his memories. Their footsteps pace ever closer to the goal.

Gladion breathes.

 

* * *

 

Moon subdues the Ultra Beast and her mother with perfect grace. This is really not his fight, not anymore.

Moon and Lillie seem to have a world ahead of them, far too large for Gladion’s scale.

He focuses on breathing in and out, and lets the responsibility flow out of him.

Slowly, slowly, the ghost starts to disappear.

Gladion keeps breathing, Hau by his side, Moon and Lillie fighting not to survive, but to thrive.

And slowly, slowly, he thinks that this is the first time in a long while he has felt happy being alive.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not alone anymore, you know,” Lillie says, half a year after their Ultra Beast confrontation.

Gladion looks up at her. “Alright,” he says, unimpressed, unmoved. The stones holding his feelings close had been dislodged a long time ago.

“I mean it,” she says. “Let me show you this picture I took with Hau and Moon, alright?”

Gladion hums. “Alright.”

She huffs. “You’re so one-note,” she complains, showing him a photo of Hau smiling brighter than the Sun. Moon is wearing a secretive smile, holding a Poké Ball that no doubt houses some legendary creature. And Lillie is in the center, grinning as she holds up a peace sign.

Gladion’s heart warms.

All-knowing, Lillie comments, “Moon has run off adventuring, but Hau is dropping by tonight, you know?”

“I know,” Gladion says. “I invited him.”

Lillie smiles. “My brother is all grown up now,” she teases.

“Grown up enough to best Moon in a battle,” he says with a smirk.

“Once!” Lillie defends hotly. “And who knows, I might do it too.”

He smiles. “Sure.”

She ruffles his hair. “God,” she says, “get rid of your emo haircut already.”

“I like it,” Gladion says. “It’s mine.”

“You and your fashion sense,” she sighs. “You better dress nice for dinner.”

“I always dress nice,” he complains.

Lillie fixes him with an impressive stars. Oh, he thinks fondly, she gets it from me. Then he frowns. Or Moon. “You dress in a hoodie and sweatpants under the blazing sun,” she says, enunciating each word with perfect diction. “In full black. Maybe some dark red if you have to compromise. You’re not dressing like that for dinner, are you?”

“No,” Gladion says, “I won’t. I’ll wear like... a dress shirt, or whatever.”

She laughs. “Just wear some jeans that aren’t black. Then I can call it quits and say that my job is done.”

“And you’ll join in later?” he asks.

“Of course!” Lillie says. “I can’t let you two be alone for too long; you’ll combust out of embarrassment and then go completely quiet, or worse, challenge him to a Pokémon battle.”

“Hey,” Gladion says, “Pokémon battles are a perfectly acceptable dinner activity.”

“After-dinner activity,” Lillie corrects. “And if you’re doing any battling, I want to watch! I have to steal your techniques, after all.”

Gladion grins. “I’m pretty sure none of my techniques apply to the Legendary Pokémon you used to carry around in your bag.”

She shrugs. “They could! And Lunala is on indefinite loan to Moon. I decided I want to do my own Pokémon journey before reuniting with her.”

“I don’t know,” Gladion says, “that seems kind of mean to Lunala.”

“Not at all,” Lillie says. “Lunala wants to fight strong trainers. I have to be one in order to give her what she wants. Isn’t it like that for you and Silvally?”

“No,” Gladion says. “Not at all.” He does not elaborate.

“Be all mysterious,” Lillie says. “Clearly Silvally is stuck on you now, so I can’t bother caring about much else.”

“You’re mysterious yourself,” Gladion comments.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lillie says. She pauses and stands up “Well, I’ll be off. I need to video call to see if she’s doing okay.”

Gladion sighs. “Yeah, okay,” he says.

Lillie begins to walk off.

He bites his lip. “Wait,” he calls.

She turns around. Has never been afraid to do so. “Tell... tell Lusamine I said hello.”

Her face softens. “I will,” she says. “And, Gladion?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to ever forgive her,” Lillie says. “I haven’t, either. But I want her to get better.”

He nods. She keeps walking.

Gladion watches her until she disappears out of sight. Then he breathes in and out, rocking in a steady, gentle rhythm, before entering his house to change.

 _Dinner_ , he thinks, _dinner, and peace._

It brings him comfort.

 

* * *

 

He spots Hau before he hears him, and when Hau spots him, he comes running, tumbling into Gladion’s arms without a word exchanged between the too.

“I missed you!” Hau cries.

Gladion hesitantly pats his back and smiles. “Me too,” he says, truth flowing out of him with no resistance. Hau’s Incineroar grumbles with excitement from within its Poké Ball, and Silvally answers in kind.

Gladion laughs, pulling himself and Hau up. “How are you?” he asks.

“Oh, you know,” Hau says. “Good. You?”

“Better.”

The sound of his heartbeat is hard to find, but once grasped, it stays nestled safely within, brought back to a warm soul with the realization that it had never been lost.

And he finds himself caught in no extreme, but somewhere in the middle of peace.

The setting sun burns between them. Hau looks soft to his eyes and embraces him in a hug.

Gladion lets himself relax.

He breathes in the scent of Alola—of home—and finally, finally, he thinks, _I belong._

**Author's Note:**

> for @ inchromprehensive on tumblr!!
> 
> i say canon divergence because while canon events all happen, i skipped over most of the actual canon dialogue and added in my own. but like... imagine all of that dialogue is happening there too. so it's kind of not really divergence as much as it is... adding on to things. idk. 
> 
> leave comments if you like, you can find me here or @ sonnets-of-beauty on tumblr!


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